Standard Chartered laments pace of IT change in banking

Standard Chartered has expressed disappointment with what it calls the "slow" pace of technology change among banks.

Leo King
February 29, 2012

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Standard Chartered has expressed disappointment with what it calls the "slow" pace of technology change among banks.

The financial services firm today reported an 11 percent rise in annual profits to $6.8 billion (£4.3 billion), mainly due to the performance of its extensive business in fast-growing Asian markets.

It told investors it planned to increase its efforts with IT, in order to adapt to changing markets.

"Like any digitisable business, banking can be transformed through technological innovation," it said in a statement.

Standard Chartered said it had "stepped up the pace of technology led innovation" across its business – including launching "the world's first trade finance apps for iPad, rolling out lifestyle-linked personal finance apps for the iPhone [and] piloting radically different operational models".

"We have even got our own internal app store," it said. "We believe technology will transform the industry. And we want to make it happen, rather than have it happen to us."

Standard Chartered said that any slow pace in technology change among banks was partly owing to financial rules, and also the result of the poor record of banks during the crisis.

"Indeed, compared to many such industries, we have arguably been slow [in terms of technology change]," it said, "partly because regulation creates barriers to such changes, partly because financial innovation became seen as a bad thing in the wake of the crisis."